Telephone surveys are routinely performed by businesses of customers or prospective customers to determine consumer feedback, preferences or trends. These survey calls are typically made from call centres which may not be local to the survey area. However, with the widespread use of “call display” systems which display information about an incoming call, many individuals will decline to answer a call if the incoming caller identification is from another area code, or if it displays a toll free number such as a 1-800 number, either of which may be indicative of a telephone solicitation call. If the phone that is called is a wireless phone, the caller ID is often not displayed, only the caller number display.
In the past, the costs and timing to setup a set of local numbers was prohibitive. It is only in the past couple of years that it has even been possible to acquire local numbers in areas where a business did not have a physical location. And even more recently has it become reasonably inexpensive to acquire purchase local numbers that are forwarded using Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) providers.
It would be advantageous to those conducting the telephone survey to maximize the number of answered calls and minimize the number of calls which are ignored or not answered.